


Breathless

by sciencefictioness



Series: Legacy [6]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: BDSM, Breathplay, Choking, M/M, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-16
Updated: 2018-10-16
Packaged: 2019-08-02 22:29:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16313846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sciencefictioness/pseuds/sciencefictioness
Summary: A week of leave would have been miserable for Jesse, once upon a time.  Back in Deadlock he’d always been running from someone; the law, other gangs, higher ranking Deadlocks with axes to grind.  Himself, and all the things he’d done trying to keep his head above water.Jesse had been low on the food chain for most of his life, and it was hard to shake that feeling, even so many years later.That instinct telling him to keep moving, just to stay alive.When he didn’t have anything to occupy himself with Jesse’s thoughts tended to go dangerous places, linger on unpleasant memories he’d rather leave buried.   Most of his days off rotation were spent in the gym or at the firing range. He’d spar until he was dead on his feet, or shoot targets until the AI locked the range on him, telling him he’d exceeded optimum training parameters and to please seek authorization codes from the appropriate officer for extended range time. Or that’s what he used to do, at least.But when he was on his back in Gabe’s quarters, legs thrown over Gabriel’s shoulders as he fucked him across their bed, Jesse thought maybe he could get used to a few more days off.





	Breathless

**Author's Note:**

> Pre-Legacy. Set several months after 'Insubordinate', but you don't necessarily need to have read that for this to make sense. Brief implications of past noncon, nothing explicit or drawn out, just FYI

A week of leave would have been miserable for Jesse, once upon a time.  Something he suffered through, rather than enjoyed— downtime made Jesse restless, made him twitchy.

 

Back in Deadlock he’d always been running from someone; the law, other gangs, higher ranking Deadlocks with axes to grind.

 

Himself, and all the things he’d done trying to keep his head above water.

 

To keep his head above the sand, the desert relentlessly creeping in, ready to swallow him whole.

 

Jesse had been low on the food chain for most of his life, and it was hard to shake that feeling, even so many years later.

 

That instinct telling him to keep moving, just to stay alive.

 

When he didn’t have anything to occupy himself with Jesse’s thoughts tended to go dangerous places, linger on unpleasant memories he’d rather leave buried.   Most of his days off rotation were spent in the gym or at the firing range. He’d spar until he was dead on his feet, or shoot targets until the AI locked the range on him, telling him he’d exceeded optimum training parameters and to please seek authorization codes from the appropriate officer for extended range time. Or that’s what he used to do, at least.

 

But when he was on his back in Gabe’s quarters, legs thrown over Gabriel’s shoulders as he fucked him across their bed, Jesse thought maybe he could get used to a few more days off.

 

Gabriel was technically on leave as well, but as a ranking officer, it didn’t mean quite the same thing for him.   He had substantially less bullshit to deal with, but he had to go to meetings, and sort out mission rosters, and sign off on personnel requests.  Things no one else could do, and leave or no leave, Gabriel had to handle it.

 

Only now Jesse was still in bed when he got finished, naked and sleep-warm, and that morning was no different.  He heard Gabriel’s footsteps clicking down the hall, the cadence of them familiar and unmistakable, and Jesse shook the last vestiges of drowsiness away and rolled over to face the door.  The blankets had fallen down to his hips, and he wrapped his arms around Gabriel’s pillow, and blinked slowly as the door whirred open and then closed again. The lights hummed to life at the movement— a muted setting that illuminated half the room in a soft glow, as opposed to the stark brightness they usually brought.

 

Something Gabriel had done when he left Jesse sleeping the second morning of his leave,  _ didn’t want to wake you up again, baby. _

 

The same man who would, without hesitation, beat the shit out of him on the mats and tell him it was for his own good, but Jesse wouldn’t have it any other way.

 

His hair was in his eyes, and he peered through the strands at Gabriel, rubbing one cheek against his pillowcase with a low hum.  The room was quiet and cool and dark, and Jesse was sore in the best way— aches that Gabriel had given him the night before, thoroughly, meticulously.  The sheets smelled like Gabriel, and Jesse reached up to touch the curve of his shoulder, and press into the tender imprint of Gabriel’s teeth with a soft sigh.  When he glanced over Jesse stretched, blankets sinking further down his body, legs shifting beneath them.

 

“Mornin’.”

 

Gabriel huffed out a laugh, even as his eyes lingered on Jesse, heavy like a caress.

 

Something Jesse could feel on him, and he preened under it, rolling over onto his back and kicking off the tangle of bedding.

 

“It’s afternoon.  I brought you lunch,” Gabriel said, holding up a tray out in front of him for a moment before setting it on the desk and taking his boots off.  He sat on the edge of the bed and ran a palm up Jesse’s thigh, fingers digging into the meat of it, tips brushing over the bruises he’d left there.  They were peppered all over the inside of Jesse’s thighs, on the jut of his hip, the muscles of his abdomen. His neck, his chest, his collarbones, everywhere Gabriel  could reach with his mouth. 

 

Jesse liked wearing them, and Gabriel knew it.  

 

He threw his knees wide— Jesse was already hard, had been since before he woke up, and Gabriel’s presence wasn’t helping matters.

 

“Awfully nice of you, but I ain’t hungry right now.”

 

Jesse grabbed Gabriel’s wrist and slid his palm higher, grinding suggestively into the touch.  Gabriel closed his hand around Jesse’s cock with a smirk, stroking him obligingly, eyes shining.

 

“Been spending half the night fucking you stupid ever since you went on leave.  Haven’t you had enough?”

 

No, he really hadn’t.  Jesse had four more days of leave, and he intended to make the most of them because there was no telling when they’d get the chance again.  He grinned, rocking up into Gabriel’s fist and cocking his head to the side.

 

“Trouble keeping up, old man?  Should I let you rest and handle this myself?”  Jesse asked, trying halfheartedly to bat Gabriel’s hand away from his cock to take it in hand, and Gabriel’s expression shifted into something darkly amused.

 

It was all the warning Jesse got before he was flipped over on his hands and knees, Gabriel’s palm shoving his head down against the pillows as he slid into him with a groan.

 

Just like Jesse wanted, and God, Gabriel was so fucking easy sometimes.

 

Half an hour later and Jesse was folded in half, knees on either side of his head, Gabriel’s hands on Jesse’s thighs keeping him pinned in place as he railed him into the mattress.  He made punched out little noises, one palm splayed on the wall above him to keep his head from slamming into it, the other clutching desperately at Gabriel anywhere he could reach. There were bruises on Gabriel too, leftover from Jesse’s mouth, and the sight of them had him shaking.

 

Gabriel was his, somehow, and Jesse didn’t know how he’d managed that, but he was never letting him go.

 

He’d already come once, and Gabriel had fucked him through through the shivers like it hadn’t even happened, murmuring praise in Jesse’s ear.  They weren’t doing a scene, but Jesse was still Gabe’s good boy, and told him so again and again.

 

The same words he’d heard a hundred times before, but they never got old, no matter how often Gabe kissed them into his skin.

 

Gabriel let Jesse’s knees fall down around his waist, heels digging into Gabe’s spine as Jesse tried to pull him closer.  His palm landed heavy on Jesse’s chest, groping at his pec before sliding higher. Over his collarbones, past his shoulder to curl around Jesse’s throat, Gabriel grinding into him with every rough thrust like he was trying to break Jesse into pieces.  He pressed his thumb into the underside of Jesse’s jaw, forcing his chin up, fingers closing fractionally tighter around his neck. It wasn’t suffocating, but the pressure was enough to have him gasping, reeling as the world disappeared around him.

 

Jesse’s eyes roved over the room, unfocused; wild and unseeing.  He wasn’t really there, anymore.

 

Jesse was slipping.  

 

Backwards through the years, thousands of miles away.  Jesse was on his back in filthy sheets, a different calloused hand tight around his throat, cold eyes watching him with terrifying detachment.  He fought for air, fingers clawing at dirty knuckles, body arching as he tried to get free. He should have been able to, except he was smaller, and leaner, and utterly terrified.

 

Weaker, none of his training to fall back on, no way to escape.  

 

He was going to die like this, helpless under a monster’s hands, scared and filthy and so fucking alone.  He’d die, and they’d bury him in the desert like stray dog, let the sand eat him until he was nothing but bones. 

 

No one would find him, because no one would look for him, and Jesse sobbed out a pathetic, breathless whine.

 

Shook, and shook, and shook.

 

_ “Jesse.” _

 

The voice was soft and worried, but that wasn’t right, someone was fouling their lines; this was a scene Jesse knew by heart.  The hand on his throat eased— no, that wasn’t how the dream went— and then everything was shifting around him again. Jesse blinked up at Gabriel through wide, wet eyes, jaw quivering as his chest heaved.

 

“Jesse?”  Gabriel’s palms were on his cheeks now, thumb wiping away a tear he hadn’t realized was there, brows furrowed unhappily.  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to, I know… how you get about that, I wasn’t thinking.”

 

Jesse wasn’t in the desert, hunger gnawing at his guts, scabbed knuckles and blood in his teeth.  Living in fear, but burying it under a crooked grin, drowning it at the bottom of a bottle.

 

Jesse was with Gabriel, and even running into bullets in Tianjin or ducking under knives in Curitiba, he’d never been safer.

 

_ I know how you get about that. _

 

It wasn’t just Gabriel.

 

Everybody knew.  They’d all pieced it together early on, when he absolutely lost his shit and damn near killed another agent who’d put him in a choke hold in training.  It didn’t take a genius to figure out why— the officers had all seen Jesse’s intake pictures.

 

Bruises in a half-dozen shades of purple and blue and black and green, wrapped around his throat like the worst kind of necklace.  Some fresh, others a few days old, even more fading away with age. Gabriel had put choking as one of Jesse’s hard limits without asking, and he’d had to insist that no, it wasn’t a hard limit, but something he might want to try someday.  Gabriel had looked dubious, but he hadn’t argued the point then, or when Jesse had insisted he was fine wearing a collar. 

 

Jesse hoped he wouldn’t argue now, either.

 

He wrapped his fingers around Gabriel’s wrist.  Slid Gabriel’s hand down over his throat, and arched his neck, chin high and eyes on fire.

 

“Choke me.”

 

Gabriel hesitated, looking Jesse in the eyes like he was trying to read something written there, but in a language he only barely understood.  

 

“Jesse…”

 

Jesse laid his palm over Gabe’s, holding it in place and coaxing his fingers wider, hips rocking down onto Gabriel’s cock where it was going soft inside him.

 

“Need you to.  It’ll be okay if it’s you.  C’mon, Gabe, please.”

 

It wasn’t a lot of words, but Jesse was begging all the same, and Gabriel’s face went earnest and determined.  He took Jesse’s hands and lifted them to his shoulders, forcing Jesse to curl them around his neck.

 

“Drop your hands and I’m stopping, alright?”  Jesse nodded eagerly, and Gabriel sighed. “I’m serious.  They fall, that’s red, and you’re done, you understand?” Jesse snorted, and grinned.

 

“Yes, sir.  Copy that, sir.”

 

Gabriel rolled his eyes, giving a few slow thrusts as he slid his hands down Jesse’s forearms, over his biceps, to close around his throat.  Tilted his chin up again, this time with both thumbs, fingers a teasing weight on his pulse point.

 

“You ready?”  Jesse nodded, hair in his eyes, anticipation making his heart beat frantic in his chest.  He must have looked just as panicked as he felt, just as desperate, because Gabriel smiled.  Soft, and indulgent. “Alright, baby. It’s okay, I got you.”

 

_ He’s got me. _

 

Then Gabriel’s fingers sank in tight around Jesse’s throat, and he arched like he’d been electrified, Gabriel’s hips rutting into him with unleashed aggression.  It  _ was  _ suffocating that time, no air to breathe, mouth open and eyes wide as Gabriel pinned him down by the neck and fucked him viciously.  Jesse clawed at Gabe’s shoulders, unable to stop himself, but he didn’t try to pry off his hands.

 

Didn’t want him to stop.

 

All that dread he usually felt when his air got cut off surged up, vivid and all encompassing, ready to drown him.

 

Then he looked at Gabriel, and it ebbed away like the tide, because Gabriel…

 

Gabriel had him.  

 

Jesse started rocking down into Gabriel, meeting his every thrust, thighs jittery and lungs on fire.  His eyes went lidded, and he wasn’t clutching at Gabriel any longer, wasn’t scratching or pawing. The world was foggy, blood pounding in his ears, body going languid.  Jesse felt high, Gabriel’s hands on his throat the only thing that kept him grounded. Made him real.

 

Kept him from disappearing.

 

Gabriel’s hands, keeping him safe, just like they always did.

 

Even when it hurt.

 

Just when everything was going dark at the edges Gabriel let go of him, palms still there but without the pressure Jesse needed.  He took a ragged breath, and then another, shaking his head even as he ground himself deeper on Gabriel’s cock.

 

“No, no,” he gasped, voice raw and full of gravel, “don’t  _ stop,  _ don’t-”

 

Then Gabriel’s fingers were back, tight like a vise, pressing every thought from his head and every word from his mouth until all Jesse could do was  _ feel.   _ He whimpered, a muffled throaty noise, something that vibrated through his chest so hard it was painful.  

 

“Shhh, shhh, shhh.  I got you, Jesse. I got you.”

 

Tears tracked warm down his cheeks as he moved with Gabriel, hazy and floating.  Gabriel leaned down to kiss his face, rhythm never faltering as he took Jesse hard and fast.  Nothing existed but Gabriel, fingers merciless around his throat, only relaxing when shadows threatened to put Jesse to sleep.  Tight, then loose, then tight again, never quite letting Jesse catch his breath. Tight enough to bruise, maybe, and  _ God,  _ Jesse wanted them to, wanted Gabriel’s touch tattooed into his throat.

 

Wanted to wear it like a brand; keep it with him, always.

 

He couldn’t breathe, and he couldn’t think, and he couldn’t speak.  Jesse’s lungs were full of smoke, and they burned, and he couldn’t take his eyes off Gabriel.

 

He didn’t realize he was about to come until it was already happening, liquid pooling on his belly as he shuddered through rush of it.  Gabriel kept holding onto his throat, hips stuttering, shooting wet and hot into Jesse with a moan. On, and on, and Jesse didn’t need air, if only he could keep that feeling.

 

Being good for Gabriel.  Being kept safe.

 

Being utterly, entirely owned.

 

Only when they were both done shivering did Gabriel let go, collapsing onto Jesse and nuzzling into his neck.  His throat was sore, both inside and out, but he didn’t flinch away as Gabriel kissed over the marks he’d left there.

 

“Okay?”  Gabriel asked, and Jesse hummed, still panting like he’d been running for miles, hands sliding drunkenly up and down Gabe’s back.

 

“Better’n okay.”

 

Gabriel kept kissing him, chaste and close mouthed.  Under his jaw, against his pulse, the curve of his shoulder.  Gently, like Jesse might break, but he was past that now.

 

Had been ever since Gabe picked him up off the floor of his quarters, and took him to bed.

 

Ever since he picked him up out of the desert, and told Jesse he could be more, could be better.

 

Could be worth something, all on his own.

 

“Hey Gabe?”  

 

Gabriel grunted in response, lips busy kissing over all the bruises he’d worked into Jesse’s skin.

 

_ Thank you,  _ was what Jesse wanted to say, but it felt too fucking earnest in his mouth.

 

“Love you.”

 

It wasn’t dishonest.

 

It wasn’t dishonest, but it wasn’t enough, either, and Jesse let his eyes flutter shut.

 

“Love you too.”

 

Jesse didn’t know if anything would ever be enough, but he’d keep trying until he found out.

 

-

 

The needle was nothing more than an insistent, irritating scrape.  Nothing like his first tattoos, done in the back of a filthy garage; a gun with a motor made out of an old video game controller and ink mixed from ashes and vodka.  They’d stung, and itched for weeks, and Jesse had wondered more than once if they were going to get infected and send him to the hospital with sepsis.

 

He’d lived through so much worse since then, being worried about a needle in his skin seemed absurd in retrospect.

 

Jesse had told Gabriel not to come with him to the shop.

 

It had been hard enough to tell Gabe what he was doing, to ask him to write his name down— nice and neat, no Reyes.

 

Only  _ Gabriel. _

 

He didn’t think he’d be able to sit there with Gabriel’s eyes on him, still and silent as the tattoo artist inked it into his skin.

 

Something he could keep with him, even when Gabriel wasn’t.

 

It had only taken a half hour or so, then another fifteen minutes with some stupidly expensive biotic gel on, and Jesse was done.  Healed, and whole, and out the door. 

 

Now he was in Gabriel’s quarters, twitchy and anxious, like it was the first time he’d ever been there.

 

Like he didn’t sleep there most nights, even when Gabe was away.

 

Gabriel cupped his cheek, and scratched through his beard with a smile.

 

“Sit pretty for me,” Gabe said, and Jesse fell to his knees, grateful for an order to obey.  Gabriel’s hands pet through his hair, gentle and adoring, and Jesse let out the air in his lungs in a rough exhale.  “Show me.”

 

Jesse dropped his chin down against his chest, and Gabriel brushed the hair off the back of Jesse’s neck, breath catching as he traced over the skin there.

 

Over his name, twisting in dark cursive, right where Jesse’s collar usually sat.  It was only a couple of inches wide, the writing delicate— just as messy as Gabriel’s signature always was, and Jesse was glad for it.  He didn’t want some unnaturally tidy version of it to carry around.

 

Gabriel laid his hands over the sides of Jesse’s head, and leaned down to press his lips against Jesse’s neck over the elegant swirl of his name.  

 

“Mine.”

 

Gabriel murmured it into the letters, and Jesse shivered at the touch. Gabriel’s lips parted slightly, kiss gone messy on his skin— wet and open mouthed.  When he stood he eased Jesse’s chin up, holding one hand under his jaw. 

 

Then Gabriel looped his thumb in the waistband of his briefs and tugged them down, and Jesse couldn’t breathe.

 

There, low on the left side of Gabriel’s stomach, just underneath where his briefs usually sat, was Jesse’s name.  Inked in deliberate black, the slant of the letters familiar; Jesse’s handwriting, taken from some form or authorization; he’d signed hundreds of them, and there was no telling which one Gabriel had used.  Jesse didn’t consciously raise his hand, but his fingers were there; shaky, tracing over the lines with something like awe. Messy. It was messy, the first letter too big, the rest crowded and sloppy.

 

“You…  you shoulda asked, I… I coulda wrote it nicer for you.”

 

It sounded choked, like Gabriel still had a hand around his throat, and he let his fingers settle on the back of Jesse’s neck and shook his head.

 

“Don’t want it nicer.  Want you just like you are.”

 

Jesse took a breath, deep and slow and ragged, before letting it out all at once.  His chest hurt, and his eyes stung, and Jesse felt dangerously fragile. He looked at Gabriel and held his gaze, lifting up on his knees.  Pressed his lips to his name, tongue licking messy over the letters, watching Gabriel’s breathing pick up, feeling Gabriel’s hand go tight in his hair.

 

“Mine.”

 

Whisper soft, barely there, but Gabriel nodded.  Stroked over Jesse’s tattoo, his other hand holding Jesse’s face, thumb wiping carefully at his cheek.

 

“Yours.  Been doing everything I can to make you see that.  I love you, Jesse.”

 

Jesse laid his forehead against the tattoo, and closed his eyes.

 

“Don’t stop.”   
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Nice words for nice words, yes?


End file.
